Under threatening skies, a Ugandan kob looks up from grazing on a windy day near Pelican Point in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Kob number in the thousands in QENP and are the main prey species for lions and leopards
Category: Favourites
I have done the boat trip up to Murchison Falls several times and each time there is something new. From nesting bee eaters to a crocodile feasting on a floating hippo carcass (photos to come!) the trip up the Nile is spectacular. This year the water level was extremely high which limited the ability of wading birds to find suitable habitat to fish. To compensate this little egret perched on an almost completely submerged boulder adjacent to some turbulent water. With the bird and foreground lit up by the late afternoon sun and the background shaded by one of the adjacent cliffs the bird really stands out in this photo.
My favourite photo from my recent trip up to Jasper. During the trip I saw numerous moose, but usually they were hiding amongst the trees which made getting good photos rather difficult. On the last day, I spotted this female along the shores of Medicine Lake at sunrise. The lake was at the lowest I have seen with the deepest part of the lake only a few feet deep. This allowed the moose to get to vegetation at the bottom of the lake that it wouldn’t normally have access to. I spent a few hours photographing this female as she moved along the shore and into the lake. However, it wasn’t until I climbed up and was heading back to my car that I turned around and noticed this great angle and back-lighting. A few cars drove by as I waited for the moose to turned a bit to allow me to get a profile shot. I figured the other people either had seen a lot of moose before and weren’t interested in stopping, or they thought it was just another rock partly submerged in the lake! With that in mind I included the foreground rocks in the photo which I think makes it a much more interesting image.
Once she reached the shallow tip of the lake she splashed and rolled around getting her head and ears wet. I guessed that she would begin to shake her head and so I quickly selected a shutter speed that I hoped would capture the motion of her head shaking and radiating water droplets while keeping her eye in focus. I have been trying for years to get photos of wildlife doing this behaviour but each time I have been a bit off with the shutter speed and aperture with the image either too blurry or too static. This time I got lucky! She turned and faced me before shaking her head back and forth to get the water off her face and ears. For sure, one of my favourite photos to date.
I almost stepped on this day old fawn as I made my way along the shoreline of a small pond in Waterton. It didn’t make a noise or move a muscle even when I was a few feet away. I quickly took a few pictures and continued up the shoreline. I wasn’t more than about 20 feet away when I heard the mother coming back to check on it. I hid in the brush but she must have caught my scent and let out a warning call to make sure the fawn stayed hidden. When deer and elk fawns are this small they can’t keep up with the adults and so the mother’s routinely leave them for several hours to go feed before coming back to nurse them. Therefore, if you come across a fawn in the grass don’t assume that it is orphaned. Just leave it be and the mother will return within a few hours.
Spring in K-country is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! It certainly makes up for the long, harsh winters. Thousands of wildflowers (mostly indian paintbrush in this photo) in the valleys with the backdrop of mountains and coniferous trees. The best part…only an hour away from where I live.
I took this photo last summer in Banff National Park along the 1A highway. I’m not sure what the flower is but the bumble bee certainly liked it. It went from flower to flower for well over 10 minutes.
If your options were a pride of half sleeping lions along a riverbed surrounded by buffalo, waterbuck and giraffe or a warthog carcass hanging in the tree next to a major park road with no leopard in sight, where would you choose to park your car? Not a bad decision to make but that was the choice I was facing late one afternoon near the Satara campsite. It was about 4pm, which meant there were only a two hours left before everyone had to be back into campsites for the 6pm curfew. Though I never got an official answer as to why the 6pm curfew, I’m almost certain it is mainly because of poaching within the park. With no other vehicles driving around it would be very easy for park wardens to spot any flashlights, headlights, etc. out in the park and catch any poachers (which unfortunately continue to be quiet a problem within the park). An added benefit is that is gives the animals a night of piece and quiet away from all the tourists. It seemed unlikely that the leopard would come back during the day and so we returned to the pride of lions, which included adult and sub-adult males and females were resting under some large trees adjacent to a river bed. Periodically one would get up, walk a few steps and flop back down into the grass. Buffalo and waterbuck knew they were there but they also wanted to get a drink. A few brave ones kept their eyes on the lions while they quickly grabbed a drink from the opposite side of the bank. Two male giraffe were off in the distance ‘necking’ which is where the males stand side by side and swing their heads out and down until they collide against each other as a way of determining strength and dominance. The lions showed a bit of interest but even though they didn’t look like they had recently fed, they did not make any attempts to go in for a kill. After watching them for some time, it was clear they were not going to go hunting anytime soon so we decided to drive back to check if the leopard had come back to claim it’s prize. While there had been a few cars parked along the road patiently waiting for the leopard to return the first time we passed by, this time there was a traffic jam! Sure enough, a big male leopard was laying overtop of his prize gazing down at all us and periodically licking the hide like a content house cat after catching a mouse. He took a few bites but seemed restless and within a few minutes he got up and jumped down out of the tree. To my surprise a hyena was lopping under the tree gazing up at the fresh meat when the leopard came down but neither of them paid any attention to the other. The leopard walk 20 meters away and laid down in the open savannah and the hyena continued to make circles under the tree. I had lost track of time but when I looked up all the cars were gone and it was 6pm. At that point we were already going to be late to the campsite. While I couldn’t remember exactly what the punishment for being late was, the fine was surely not going to be more than $20 dollars so what was a few more minutes? We watch the leopard as he cleaned off his face and paws and the hyena eventually gave up and wondered off. As the last bit of sunlight vanished from the sky we figured it was time to get back to the campsite and so with great hesitation I turned the car around, took one last glace at the leopard and raced back to the campsite. We were 14 minutes late. The gates were locked and a stern looking guard with a rifle was standing next to the gate. He took down our licence plate in case there were future transgressions and after a stern warning he let us in!
This little chameleon was walking across the main road when we spotted him. After taking a few pictures and scanning for any large carnivores I got out, picked him up and moved him to the grass.
In between searching for food this hornbill briefly looked up above the dried grasses to survey the open savannah. I snapped off a few photos and this by far was my favorite.
By this point we had managed to cross the water to the other side of the pond but not without being followed by one of the terrapins. The females in this species are generally larger than the males and so I think this was a curious female terrapin. She walked right up to my lens before deciding to return to the safety of the pond and we quickly left before anymore decided to come up for another visit.
I couldn’t believe my good luck. Not only were there two leopards, but they were in a wide open clearing with beautiful, soft morning light. I took this picture just before this leopard walked behind a bush and in between me cursing my periodically malfunctioning camera.
One of my favorites. I took this photo from the community campsite I was staying at inside Amboseli National Park. Most of the classic photos of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background with elephants making their way across the savannah are from Amboseli National Park. The tour guide that I had on this trip was not very accommodating so instead of going on an early morning game drive I only had the option of waking up early and walking around the campsite grounds to take photos. Thankfully, the area was quiet large and I lucked out and saw elephants browsing on acacia trees, wildebeest making their way to the watering holes and a beautiful sunrise with a clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro.
On this trip I wanted to make sure that I took pictures of some of the daily life and activities of Kenyans and not just focus on the wildlife photography. I took this photo while parked along the Uhuru highway that connects Nairobi to Mombasa at the intersection of the road that heads south to Amboseli National Park. Bicycles are a very common form of transport for everything from water to livestock to furniture to people. This woman flagged down the bicyclist for a ride. Once she was seated and they had started making their way down the highway the man must have told a joke as both burst out into laughter as he pedaled past. As you can see, the tires and frame of the bicycle are coated in red dirt (due to high levels of iron oxide in the soil). All of my clothes, shoes and camera gear got covered in this red soil but amazingly Kenyans wearing white clothes or shoes never seemed to have this problem. They must have some secret for keeping the dust off. Anyway, I will be posting many more photos of various roadside scenes in Kenya over the next few weeks…
One of my favorite photos from the trip. This little black bear was the last to cross the road after it’s mother and sibling had already made it across. Instead of running into the forest, as soon as it crossed the road it stopped behind the daisies until the mother came back, licked it’s face, made sure that I wasn’t too close and then they wandered off to eat.
Owen Slater Photography 